An awning was spread over the after-deck, and under this was arranged with care the main collection of corals and shells, the commoner sorts, such as found a ready sale at low prices.

There was pure white coral, in long branches, studded with tiny points, like the wraith of the fairy thorn; there were great piles of the delicate fan-coral, which the sailors call sea-fans, and which Franci would hold out to every girl who had any pretence to good looks, with his most gracious bow, and "Young lady like to fan herself, keep the sun off, _here_ you air, ladies!" While Laurentus would blush and hang his head if any woman addressed him, and would murmur the wrong price in an unintelligible voice if the woman happened to be young and pretty.
Then there were mushroom corals, so inviting that one could hardly refrain from carrying them home and cooking them for tea; and pincushion corals, round and hard, looking as if they had been stolen from the best bedroom of some uncompromising New England mermaid.

Yes; there was no end to the corals.

The lovely white branches were cheap, and nearly every child went off with a branch, small or large, dwelling on it with eyes of rapture, seeing nothing else in the world, in some cases failing to see even the way, and being rescued from peril of water by the Skipper or Rento.

The favourite shells were the conches, of all sizes and varieties, from the huge pink-lipped Tritons of the "Triumph of Galatea," down to fairy things, many-whorled, rainbow-tinted, which were included in the "handful for five cents" which Franci joyously proclaimed at intervals, when he thought the children looked wistful and needed cheering up, since they could not have all they saw.
But the Cypraeas were beautiful, too, and of every colour, from white or palest amber to deep sullen purples and browns that melted into ebony.
These were the shells with voices, that spoke of the sea; many a child raised them to his ear, and listened with vague delight to the far-away, uncertain murmur; but not to every child is it given to hear the sound of the sea, and it may be doubted whether any boy or girl would have understood what the boy John meant, if he had declared the things that the shell had said to him.
Where was John?
Franci and Rento had charge of the deck exhibition, but the Skipper kept his station at the head of the gang-plank, and while courteously receiving his visitors, with a word of welcome for each, he looked often up the road to see if his little friend was coming.